Monday, September 29, 2014

A new paper published in the Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres find that

"changes in cloud cover rather than anthropogenic aerosols emissions played the major role in determining solar dimming and brightening during the last half century and that there are reasons to suppose that these findings may have wider relevance."

Analysis of the Angstrom-Prescott relationship between normalized values of global radiation and sunshine duration measured during the last 50 years made at five sites with a wide range of climate and aerosol emissions showed few significant differences in atmospheric transmissivity under clear or cloud-covered skies between years when global dimming occurred and years when global brightening was measured, nor in most cases were there any significant changes in the parameters or in their relationships to annual rates of fossil fuel combustion in the surrounding 1° cells. It is concluded that at the sites studied changes in cloud cover rather than anthropogenic aerosols emissions played the major role in determining solar dimming and brightening during the last half century and that there are reasons to suppose that these findings may have wider relevance.

A special report "Explaining extreme events of 2013 from a climate perspective" has been published today in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. The authors claim to "link" some extreme heat waves to anthropogenic global warming, but not other extreme weather including droughts, heavy rain, and storms.

"In this paper, 20 different research groups explored the causes of 16 different events that occurred in 2013.The findings indicate that human-caused climate change greatly increased the risk for the extreme heat waves assessed in this report. How human influence affected other types of events such as droughts, heavy rain events, and storms was less clear, indicating that natural variability likely played a much larger role in these extremes."

Thus, as noted today on twitter by Dr. Roger Pielke Jr, "the bottom line on this new NOAA special report: If you are attributing any extreme other than heat waves to Anthropogenic Climate Change, you are on weak (or worse) scientific ground."

Further, is it possible to determine how much warming to attribute to natural warming recovery since the Little Ice Age vs. possible anthropogenic change? This paper cites the IPCC report and claim that "most" of the warming since 1950 is anthropogenic. However, this is the false attribution assumption and is thus used as the underlying basis for blaming some of the heat waves of 2013 on man-made emissions of CO2. How can they then explain why the most extreme US heat waves by far occurred during the low-CO2 1930's?

Of course, none of this science stops our favorite Associated Press propagandist Seth Borenstein from spinning this study as

WASHINGTON -- Scientists looking at 16 cases of wild weather around the world last year see the fingerprints of man-made global warming on more than half of them.

Researchers found that climate change increased the odds of nine extremes: Heat waves in Australia, Europe, China, Japan and Korea, intense rain in parts of the United States and India, and severe droughts in California and New Zealand.

Scientists couldn't find a global warming link to an early South Dakota blizzard, freak storms in Germany and the Pyrenees, heavy rain in Colorado, southern and central Europe, and a cold British spring....

By Stephanie C. Herring, Martin P. Hoerling, Thomas C. Peterson, and Peter A. StottABSTRACT:Attribution of extreme events is a challenging scienceand one that is currently undergoing considerable evolution.In this paper, 20 different research groups exploredthe causes of 16 different events that occurred in 2013.The findings indicate that human-caused climate changegreatly increased the risk for the extreme heat wavesassessed in this report. How human influence affectedother types of events such as droughts, heavy rain events,and storms was less clear, indicating that natural variabilitylikely played a much larger role in these extremes.Multiple groups chose to look at both the Australian heatwaves and the California drought, providing an opportunityto compare and contrast the strengths and weaknessesof various methodologies. There was considerableagreement about the role anthropogenic climate changeplayed in the events between the different assessments.This year three analyses were of severe storms and nonefound an anthropogenic signal. However, attribution assessmentsof these types of events pose unique challengesdue to the often limited observational record. Whenhuman-influence for an event is not identified with thescientific tools available to us today, this means that ifthere is a human contribution, it cannot be distinguishedfrom natural climate variability.

Thursday, September 25, 2014

A correspondence published today in Nature Climate Change is a damning indictment ofthe updated HADCRUT global temperature database, which is used as the basis of all of the other land-based temperature databases including GISS and BEST. The correspondence demolishes the claim of Ji et al that "the global climate has been experiencing significant warming at an unprecedented pace in the past century" as well as the reliability of the HADCRU database to determine global temperature trends of the past 164 years. According to the authors, conclusions about global temperature change cannot be reliably determined prior to the 1950's due to the poor spatiotemporal coverage prior to the 1950's and trends determined from the early HADCRU data are "meaningless and "artificially flattened."Likewise, all climate model "tuning" based on the "meaningless" global temperature trends prior to the 1950's are therefore "meaningless" GIGO as well. According to the authors,

Ji et al present a methodology to analyse global (excluding Antarctica) spatiotemporal patterns of temperature change, using mean monthly temperatures obtained from the updated Climate Research Unit (CRU) high-resolution gridded climate database. Their analysis fails to take into account several key characteristics of the CRU database, seriously compromising the conclusions regarding the spatiotemporal patterns of global warming during the twentieth century.

Consequently, the temporal auto-correlation of such time series is artificially high, and the climatic variability they portray for the early decades of the record is meaningless.

"...strongly suggests the absence of a trend over the first half of the 20th century in many tropical and Arctic regions can be attributed to the lack of climatic information and the corresponding flattened time series..."

"...we suggest that it is very likely that the spatiotemporal temperature patterns described in Ji et al are strongly contaminated by the spatial and temporal heterogeneities of the CRU database."

"...this problem affects the whole analysis."

"artificially flattened trends in the early 20th century will reflect slower warming trends than observed trends in the latter 20th century." [i.e. imply false acceleration]

"If the aim is global coverage, the optimal period should not start before the 1950's, although this would compromise the authors' aim to capture long-term trends."

Excerpts from the Nature Climate Change, followed by 2 posts from StevenGoddard.wordpress.com, which illustrate the problems the authors are referring to in the HADCRU record, such as Phil Jones' and HADCRU ridiculous extrapolation of a single thermometer in Tasmania at the beginning of the HADCRU record in 1850 as representing the entire Southern Hemisphere, and with one-thousandth of a degree precision!

CRUTEM3v – August 1850. Phil Jones had only one thermometer record for the entire southern hemisphere (located in Tasmania) and was able to precisely calculate the hemispheric mean temperature anomaly of -1.182

Phil Jones was able to determine the 1850 southern hemisphere temperature to three digit precision, from a single thermometer in Tasmania. The graph above shows the complete time series since 1850 for Tasmania.

Two companion papers published today in the Journal of Climate find the natural ocean oscillations the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) have had significant and "important influence" upon intra- to multi-decadal [shorter and longer than 1 decade] US climate variability including temperature and precipitation since 1896.According to the authors,

"PDO phase seems to be an important influence on spring temperatures in the northwest U.S., eastern temperature regimes in annual, winter, summer and fall temperatures are more coincident with cool and warm phase AMO regimes. Annual AMO values also correlate significantly with summer temperatures along the eastern seaboard and fall temperatures in the southwest. Given evidence of the abrupt onset of cold winter temperatures in the eastern U.S. during 1957-1958, possible climate mechanisms associated with the cause and duration of the eastern U.S. warming hole [and the ice age scare of the 1970's] period - identified here as a cool temperature regime occurring between the late 1950’s and late 1980’s..."

U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service, USDA Plant Stress and Water Conservation Laboratory, Lubbock, TX 79415

Eugene C.Cordero

Department of Meteorology and Climate Science, San José State University, San José, CA 95192-0104

Abstract

The Optimal Ranking Regime (ORR) method was used to identify intra- to multi-decadal (IMD) time windows containing significant ranking sequences in U.S. climate division temperature data. The simplicity of the ORR procedure’s output – a time series’ most significant non-overlapping periods of high or low rankings – makes it possible to graphically identify common temporal breakpoints and spatial patterns of IMD variability in the analyses of 102 climate division temperature series. This approach is also applied to annual AMO and PDO climate indices, a northern hemisphere annual temperature (NHT) series, and divisional annual and seasonal temperature data during 1896-2012. In addition, Pearson correlations are calculated between PDO, AMO, and NHT series and the divisional temperature series. Although PDO phase seems to be an important influence on spring temperatures in the northwest U.S., eastern temperature regimes in annual, winter, summer and fall temperatures are more coincident with cool and warm phase AMO regimes. Annual AMO values also correlate significantly with summer temperatures along the eastern seaboard and fall temperatures in the southwest. Given evidence of the abrupt onset of cold winter temperatures in the eastern U.S. during 1957-1958, possible climate mechanisms associated with the cause and duration of the eastern U.S. warming hole period - identified here as a cool temperature regime occurring between the late 1950’s and late 1980’s – are discussed.

U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service, USDA Plant Stress and Water Conservation Laboratory, Lubbock, TX 79415

Eugene C.Cordero

Department of Meteorology and Climate Science, San José State University, San José, CA 95192-0104

Abstract

In a preceding companion paper, the Optimal Ranking Regime (ORR) method was used to identify intra- to multi-decadal (IMD) regimes in U.S. climate division temperature data during 1896-2012. Here, the method is used to test for annual and seasonal precipitation regimes during that same period. Water year mean streamflow rankings at 125 U.S. Hydro-Climatic Data Network gauge stations are also evaluated during 1939-2011. The precipitation and streamflow regimes identified are compared with ORR-derived regimes in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), and indices derived from gridded SSTA analysis data. Using a graphic display approach that allows for the comparison of IMD climate regimes in multiple time series, an inter-decadal cycle in western precipitation is apparent after 1980, as is a similar cycle in northwestern streamflow. Before 1980, IMD regimes in northwestern streamflow and annual precipitation are in approximate anti-phase with the PDO. One of the clearest IMD climate signals found in this analysis are post-1970 wet regimes in eastern U.S streamflow and annual precipitation, and also in fall (SON) precipitation. Pearson correlations between time series of annual and seasonal precipitation averaged over the eastern U.S. and sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) analysis data show relatively extensive positive correlations between warming tropical SSTA and increasing fall precipitation. The possible Pacific and northern Atlantic roots of the recent eastern U.S. wet regime, and the general characteristics of U.S. climate variability in recent decades that emerge from this analysis and that of the companion paper, are discussed.

A paper published today in Nature Communications finds sea levels naturally rose up to 5.5 meters [18 feet] per century during 5 prior interglacial periods. In addition, the authors finds interglacials "with close to the modern amount of ice on Earth, show rates sea level rise of up to 1 to 1.5 metres per century," which is about 8 times faster than sea levels are rising today with the same levels of ice on Earth [i.e. less than 7 inches per century without acceleration].Further, in a prior paper by the same authors and using the same data, the authors state that today's sea levels are well within the levels expected from natural variability and that natural variability alone could account for 25 meters more sea level rise than the present:

"Regardless of the uncertainties surrounding the use of any one of the specific scenarios in Fig. 2, it is clear that equilibrium sea level for the present-day [CO2] of 387 ppmv resides within a broad range between 0 and +25 (±5) meters."

and show sea levels during at least 4 prior interglacials over the past 500,000 years were higher than during the present interglacial period [up to 31 feet higher during the last interglacial alone]. Thus, there is no evidence that the [decelerating] sea level rise over the past ~20,000 years is unusual, unprecedented, or unnatural.

The same data in a prior paper from the same authors shows sea levels during at least 4 prior interglacials were higher than during the present interglacial [at left side of graph]. Green crosses in second graph from top show relative sea level highstand mean and uncertainty.

Land-ice decay at the end of the last five ice-ages caused global sea-levels to rise at rates of up to 5.5 metres per century, according to a new study. [5.5 meters/century is 31 times faster than current sea level rise]

An international team of researchers developed a 500,000-year record of sea-level variability, to provide the first account of how quickly sea-level changed during the last five ice-age cycles.

The results, published in the latest issue of Nature Communications, also found that more than 100 smaller events of sea-level rise took place in between the five major events.

Dr Katharine Grant, from the Australian National University (ANU), Canberra, who led the study, says: "The really fast rates of sea-level rise typically seem to have happened at the end of periods with exceptionally large ice sheets, when there was two or more times more ice on the Earth than today.

"Time periods with less than twice the modern global ice volume show almost no indications of sea-level rise faster than about 2 metres per century. Those with close to the modern amount of ice on Earth, show rates of up to 1 to 1.5 metres per century."

Co-author Professor Eelco Rohling, of both the University of Southampton and ANU, explains that the study also sheds light on the timescales of change. He says: "For the first time, we have data from a sufficiently large set of events to systematically study the timescale over which ice-sheet responses developed from initial change to maximum retreat."

"This happened within 400 years for 68 per cent of all 120 cases considered, and within 1100 years for 95 per cent. In other words, once triggered, ice-sheet reduction (and therefore sea-level rise) kept accelerating relentlessly over periods of many centuries."

Professor Rohling speculates that there may be an important lesson for our future: "Man-made warming spans 150 years already [No - according to the IPCC, there was no significant man-made warming prior to 1950] and studies have documented clear increases in mass-loss from the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. Once under way, this response may be irreversible for many centuries to come."

The team reconstructed sea-levels using data from sediment cores from the Red Sea, an area that is very sensitive to sea-level changes because it's only natural connection with the open (Indian) ocean is through the very shallow (137 metre) Bab-el-Mandab Strait. These sediment samples record wind-blown dust variations, which the team linked to a well-dated climate record from Chinese stalagmites. Due to a common process, both dust and stalagmite records show a pronounced change at the end of each ice age, which allowed the team to date the sea-level record in detail.

The researchers emphasise that their values for sea-level change are 500-year averages, so brief pulses of faster change cannot be excluded.

Of course, the alarmists at NBC News have managed to spin this paper to suggest "scary" sea level rise is your fault and spinning out of control, failing to mention it has been decelerating for the past 20,000 years, and with no evidence of any man-made influence [i.e. no acceleration].

Berlin's "energy revolution" is going great—if you own a coal mine. The German shift to renewablepower sources that started in 2000 has brought the green share of German electricity up to around25%. But the rest of the energy mix has become more heavily concentrated on coal, which nowaccounts for some 45% of power generation and growing. Embarrassingly for such an eco-consciouscountry, Germany is on track to miss its carbon emissions reduction goal by 2020.Greens profess horror at this result, but no one who knows anything about economics will besurprised. It's the result of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Energiewende, or energy revolution, a driveto thwart market forces and especially price signals, that might otherwise allocate energyresources. Now the market is striking back.Take the so-called feed-in tariff, which requires distributors to buy electricity from greengenerators at fixed prices before buying power from other sources. Greens tout the measurebecause it has encouraged renewable generation to the point that Germany now sometimesexperiences electricity gluts if the weather is particularly sunny or windy.Yet by diverting demand to renewables, the tariff deprives traditional generators of revenue andmakes it harder for them to forecast demand for thermal power plants that require millions ofeuros of investment and years to build. No wonder utilities favor cheaper coal plants to pick up theslack whenever renewables don't deliver as promised.Mrs. Merkel's accelerated phase-out of nuclear power after the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japanhas had a similar effect. Shutting profitable nuclear plants deprives utilities of revenue and saddlesthem with steep decommissioning costs, which makes cheaper coal more appealing.To top it off, Berlin has imposed a moratorium on fracking. By preventing exploitation of ample shale-gas reserves, the ban leaves Germany more exposed to strategic pressure from gas exporters (read: Russia) and raises the cost of gas relative to coal. This is another reason cheap, local coal is back in favor.Ordinary Germans foot the bill for these market distortions, having ponied up an estimated €100 billion ($129 billion) extra on their electricity bills since 2000 to fund the renewable drive. The government estimates this revolution could cost a total of €1 trillion by 2040.Berlin is scaling back some taxpayer subsidies for green power. But Germans still also pay for theenergy revolution when job-creating investment goes to countries with lower power costs, ashappened earlier this year when chemical company BASF said it would cut its investments inGermany to one-quarter of its global total from one-third, and when bad incentives skewgeneration toward dirtier coal instead of cleaner natural gas.None of this is what environmentalists promise voters when they plug the virtues of a low-carbonfuture. Germany's coal renaissance is a cautionary tale in what happens when you try to substitutegreen dreams for economic realities.

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Columnist Eugene Robinson was impressed by plans for the U.N. "climate summit," which he previewed yesterday: "More than 100 world leaders will assemble Tuesday at the United Nations to discuss what they are already doing, and further steps they might take, to address what majorities in many developed nations see as the gravest and most urgent problem facing the planet."

Or maybe he wasn't. The next sentence: "No concrete action will be taken." That's in contrast to the 1992 "Earth summit," where it "seemed inevitable" that a "binding treaty" would result. It turned out to be as inevitable as Hillary Clinton in 2008. "Does this make the U.N. Climate Summit a waste of time?" Robinson asks. "Not if you believe, as I do, that public awareness and pressure are the best hope for effective climate action."

Such is the life of a columnist. You have to produce verbiage on schedule, even when you have nothing to say.

Hot enough for you? Associated Press

That goes for politicians too. President Obama appeared at the summit, where he asserted that "the urgent and growing threat of a changing climate" is the "one issue that will define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other."

"The alarm bells keep ringing," he claimed. "Our citizens keep marching. We cannot pretend we do not hear them." Yes, we can!

He quoted "one of America's governors" (it's Jay Inslee of Washington) as saying: "We are the first generation to feel the impact of climate change and the last generation that can do something about it."

What bunk. "The impact of climate change"--that is, weather, including severe weather--is part of life on Earth and always has been. Global warmism has been around for at least a generation already, as evidenced by this Los Angeles Times headline from 1989: "Global Warming Is Expected to Be the Hot Issue of 1990s." That was a generation ago, and in an earlier century to boot.

"Today," the president announced, "I'm here personally, as the leader of the world's largest economy and its second largest emitter, to say that we have begun to do something about it." And he lectured the largest emitter (and second-largest economy): "Just a few minutes ago, I met with Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, and reiterated my belief that as the two largest economies and emitters in the world, we have a special responsibility to lead. That's what big nations have to do."

But as Robinson points out, the Chinese, along with the Indians and Russians, the No. 3 and 4 emitters, "say they have scheduling conflicts that make it impossible to attend" the summit. On the other hand, the president of Seychelles made it. He must've burned a lot of fossil fuel to get to New York.

Robinson is encouraged by Sunday's "mass mobilization" in New York, in which "a crowd calculated by organizers at more than 300,000 took part in the biggest march ever against climate change." To put things in perspective, 300,000 is less than 0.1% of the U.S. population and about 3.5% of the New York population. Many of the mobilizers, like the Seychelles president, burned fossil fuels to get to the city from out of town. [the 300,000 figure was exaggerated by #PeoplesClimate organizers actually around 100,000-125,000].

Last week we wrote about the planned march, which we characterized as just another gathering of assorted lefties. Hanna Kozlowska confirmed our expectations in a piece for the New York Times's "Op-Talk" blog titled "The Climate Movement Is About Much More Than Just Climate": "The march carried many messages from many individuals and groups--as many as 1,300--from 'Moms Clean Air Force' to activists from the AIDS awareness group Act Up." That, too, brings back memories from the 1990s.

Kozlowska suggests the summit's agenda was more red than green:

Naomi Klein, a journalist, activist and author of the books "No Logo" and "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism," spoke at St. Peter's Church in Midtown Manhattan about her new book, "This Changes Everything."

It's easier to imagine turning down the temperature of the sun, Ms. Klein said, than changing the rules governing our economy.

But "these are the choices that we have before us, this is why climate change changes everything," Ms. Klein said.

In her book, Ms. Klein argues that the root cause of climate change is capitalism, emphasizing that if no profound and radical changes to the system are made, a climate catastrophe is inevitable. "The bottom line is what matters here: Our economic system and our planetary system are now at war," Ms. Klein writes. "Only one of these sets of rules can be changed, and it's not the laws of nature."

PJMedia's "Zombie" attended a satellite rally in Oakland, Calif., where he snapped dozens of photos of communist, socialist and vegetarian signs and placards. Examples: "CAPITALI$M IS DESTROYING THE ENVIRONMENT"; "CAPITALISM IS KILLING THE PLANET: FIGHT FOR A SOCIALIST FUTURE!"; "Another Big, Fat, straight, Midwestern, White, Man For WORLD REVOLUTION."

There's quite a disconnect between the "climate movement's" attitude toward capitalism and the president's hectoring of the absent Chinese. Unlike in 1989, China today is one of the few countries in the world, and the only large one, whose regime is avowedly communist.To be sure, one of the reasons communism has survived in China is because that regime has permitted elements of capitalism while continuing to practice political repression. According to one prominent climate-march participant, political repression is just what America needs, as Climate Depot's Marc Morano reports:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lamented that there were no current laws on the books to punish global warming skeptics. "I wish there were a law you could punish them with. I don't think there is a law that you can punish those politicians under," Kennedy told Climate Depot in a one-on-one interview during the People's Climate March. The interiew was conducted for the upcoming documentary Climate Hustle. . . .

Kennedy saved his most venomous comments for the Koch Brothers. . . . "I think it's treason. Do I think the Koch Brothers are treasonous, yes I do," Kennedy explained.

"They are enjoying making themselves billionaires by impoverishing the rest of us. Do I think they should be in jail, I think they should be enjoying three hots and a cot at the Hague with all the other war criminals," Kennedy declared.

We're pretty sure treason is not a crime under international law, but at any rate Kennedy's comments are more in the spirit of the tanks at Tiananmen Square a quarter-century ago than the protesters.

All this climate chatter has had an effect on American public opinion, but only on one side of the partisan divide. "A recent survey found that Democrats believe the threat posed by climate change is greater than the threat posed by either al Qaeda or the Islamic State,"

The Pew Research Center/USA Today survey, conducted between Aug. 20 and 24, shows that 68 percent of Democrats said global climate change is a "major threat" to the U.S. while 67 percent chose al Qaida and 65 percent chose ISIS as a major threat to the country.

On the Republican side, 80 percent said al Qaida was the major threat and 78 percent chose ISIS, while only 25 percent said global climate change was a major threat.

Among Independents, 69 percent chose al Qaeda as the major threat, 63 percent chose ISIS, and only 44 percent said climate change.

Among Democrats, global climate change topped the list of greatest threats to the U.S. But among Republicans and Independents, it placed last on a list of nine "major threats."

But that's belied even by the words of President Obama. He spoke again this morning at the U.N. Security Council, a much higher-profile venue than the climate summit, where he mentioned climate only once in passing--and that was to note the futility of his own efforts:

"The science tells us we can only succeed in combating climate change if we are joined in this effort by every other nation, by every major power." He gave as much attention to, of all subjects, Ferguson, Mo.

He spent a lot more time on "the cancer of violent extremism that has ravaged so many parts of the Muslim world." And although he has--like President Bush before him--made much of his efforts at coalition-building, he did not insist that the support of every other nation, every major power, is necessary.

Of course the Obama administration is imposing destructive regulations in the name of "climate change" despite his acknowledgment of their futility. But at least the president shows some sign of recognizing where the real threats lie.

The Global Warming Policy Foundation has pointed to a paper published by the International Astronomical Union in 2010 which corroborates Svensmark's solar/cosmic ray theory of climate and concludes,

"The mechanism of the influence of cosmic rays on the cloud formation is not fullyunderstood, however, our proxy based analyses of cosmic rays and climate change duringthe Maunder Minimum exhibit the importance of cosmic rays as a medium of solar forcing of climate change at decadal to multi-decadal time scales. The complex features of solar magnetic and cosmic ray cycles, such as the variable length of the “11-year” cycle, the subsequent lengthening/shortening of the “22-year” Hale cycle, the amplification of the 22-year cycle in cosmic rays at grand solar minima, may be able to explain some of the complex features of climate change at this time scale."

"We have also found that climate proxy record shows cyclic variations similar to stretching/shortening Schwabe/Hale solar cycles in time, suggesting that both Schwabe and Hale solar cycles are playing important role in climate change. In this paper, we review the nature of Schwabe and Hale cycles of solar activity and cosmic-ray flux during the Maunder Minimum and their possible influence on climate change. We suggest that the Hale cycle of cosmic rays are amplified during the grand solar minima and thus the influence of cosmic rays on climate change is prominently recognizable during such periods."

One of many observational examples supporting the solar/cosmic ray theory of climate

The Maunder Minimum 1645-1715 AD of solar activity corresponds to the tree ring cosmogenic isotope carbon-14 in the next graph below, which increases due to more cosmic rays at times of low solar activity.

Abstract. We have examined the variation of carbon-14 content in annual tree rings, and investigated the transitions of the characteristics of the Schwabe/Hale (11-year/22-year) solar and cosmic-ray cycles during the last 1200 years, focusing mainly on the Maunder and Spoerer minima and the early Medieval Maximum Period. It has been revealed that the mean length of the Schwabe/Hale cycles changes associated with the centennial-scale variation of solar activity level. The mean length of Schwabe cycle had been ∼14 years during the Maunder Minimum, while it was ∼9 years during the early Medieval Maximum Period. We have also found that climate proxy record shows cyclic variations similar to stretching/shortening Schwabe/Hale solar cycles in time, suggesting that both Schwabe and Hale solar cycles are playing important role in climate change. In this paper, we review the nature of Schwabe and Hale cycles of solar activity and cosmic-ray flux during the Maunder Minimum and their possible influence on climate change. We suggest that the Hale cycle of cosmic rays are amplified during the grand solar minima and thus the influence of cosmic rays on climate change is prominently recognizable during such periods.

This could be a watershed moment, when the bad boys of climate science finally get their comeuppance from the hardest of the hard scientists - the physicists. Thanks to a hard-hitting and high-visibility Wall Street Journal article by well-respected physicist Dr. Steven Koonin, in which "the veteran technoscience leader declares the science not settled," the American Physical Society journal Physics Today has just published a complementary article basically endorsing the fact that APS "Physicist Steve Koonin impeaches scientists’ climate consensus."

"Steven E. Koonin welcomed participants to the Climate Change Statement Review Workshop that he was chairing for the American Physical Society, he made a point of acknowledging “experts who credibly take significant issue with several aspects of the consensus picture.” Participating, and fitting that description, were climate scientists Judith Curry, Richard Lindzen, and John Christy."

In January, when Steven E. Koonin welcomed participants to the Climate Change Statement Review Workshop that he was chairing for the American Physical Society, he made a point of acknowledging “experts who credibly take significant issue with several aspects of the consensus picture.” Participating, and fitting that description, were climate scientists Judith Curry, Richard Lindzen, and John Christy. Now Koonin has published a high-visibility commentary in the Wall Street Journal under the headline “Climate science is not settled.” In the paper version, the editors italicized the word not.

The WSJ identifies Koonin as

* President Obama’s former Energy Department undersecretary for science,

* director of the Center for Urban Science and Progress at New York University,

* a past professor of theoretical physics and provost at Caltech, and

* a past chief scientist for BP, “where his work focused on renewable and low-carbon energy technologies.”

It can be added that Koonin has a long past in investigating and pronouncing on physics questions of special public importance. A quarter century ago, the New York Times article “Physicists debunk claim of a new kind of fusion” included this: “Dr. Steven E. Koonin of Caltech called the Utah report a result of ‘the incompetence and delusion of Pons and Fleischmann.’ The audience of scientists sat in stunned silence for a moment before bursting into applause.”

Koonin’s 2000-word WSJ commentary dominates the front page of the Saturday Review section, with a jump to an interior page. The editors signposted it in several ways. The subhead says, “Climate change is real and affected by human activity, writes a former top science official of the Obama administration. But we are very far from having the knowledge needed to make good policy.” A call-out line in boldface on the front page says, “Our best climate models still fail to explain the actual climate data.” Another, after the jump to p. C2, says, “The discussion should not be about ‘denying’ or ‘believing’ the science.” A photo caption on the jump page says, in part, “Today’s best estimate of climate sensitivity is no more certain than it was 30 years ago.” A caption on the front page says, “While Arctic ice has been shrinking, Antarctic sea ice is at a record high.” (Although that photo plainly shows only the extraction of an ice-core sample, the caption adds, “Above, scientists measure the sea level in Antarctica.”)

Here are excerpts from Koonin’s commentary:

* The idea that “Climate science is settled” runs through today’s popular and policy discussions. Unfortunately, that claim is misguided.

* The crucial scientific question for policy isn’t whether the climate is changing. That is a settled matter: The climate has always changed and always will. . . . Nor is the crucial question whether humans are influencing the climate. That is no hoax: There is little doubt in the scientific community that continually growing amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, due largely to carbon-dioxide emissions from the conventional use of fossil fuels, are influencing the climate. There is also little doubt that the carbon dioxide will persist in the atmosphere for several centuries. The impact today of human activity appears to be comparable to the intrinsic, natural variability of the climate system itself. Rather, the crucial, unsettled scientific question for policy is, “How will the climate change over the next century under both natural and human influences?”

* Even though human influences could have serious consequences for the climate, they are physically small in relation to the climate system as a whole. . . . Since the climate system is highly variable on its own, that smallness sets a very high bar for confidently projecting the consequences of human influences.

* The oceans, which change over decades and centuries, hold most of the climate’s heat and strongly influence the atmosphere. Unfortunately, precise, comprehensive observations of the oceans are available only for the past few decades; the reliable record is still far too short to adequately understand how the oceans will change and how that will affect climate.

* We often hear that there is a “scientific consensus” about climate change. But as far as the computer models go, there isn’t a useful consensus at the level of detail relevant to assessing human influences.

* Work to resolve . . . shortcomings in climate models should be among the top priorities for climate research. Yet a public official reading only the IPCC’s “Summary for Policy Makers” would gain little sense of the extent or implications of these deficiencies.

* While the past two decades have seen progress in climate science, the field is not yet mature enough to usefully answer the difficult and important questions being asked of it.

* We can and should take steps to make climate projections more useful over time. . . . The science is urgent, since we could be caught flat-footed if our understanding does not improve more rapidly than the climate itself changes.

* Policy makers and the public may wish for the comfort of certainty in their climate science. But I fear that rigidly promulgating the idea that climate science is “settled” (or is a “hoax”) demeans and chills the scientific enterprise, retarding its progress in these important matters. Uncertainty is a prime mover and motivator of science and must be faced head-on.

* Individuals and countries can legitimately disagree about these matters, so the discussion should not be about “believing” or “denying” the science. Despite the statements of numerous scientific societies, the scientific community cannot claim any special expertise in addressing issues related to humanity’s deepest goals and values. The political and diplomatic spheres are best suited to debating and resolving such questions, and misrepresenting the current state of climate science does nothing to advance that effort.

Steven T. Corneliussen, a media analyst for the American Institute of Physics, monitors three national newspapers, the weeklies Nature and Science, and occasionally other publications. He has published op-eds in the Washington Post and other newspapers, has written for NASA's history program, and is a science writer at a particle-accelerator laboratory.